The NBA’s first ever In-Season Tournament is upon us, and it didn’t take long for there to be drama.
The Golden State Warriors won their first game of the inaugural In-Season Tournament with a wild, 141-139 victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder on Friday. After it appeared that Stephen Curry had finished a high-arcing flip shot with 0.2 seconds remaining for a presumed game-winner, the shot was waved off for basket interference on Draymond Green, who appeared to make contact with the rim while Curry’s shot was still inside the cylinder. Upon review, the basket-interference on Green was overturned due to OKC’s Josh Giddey making contact with the net prior to Green touching the rim, which is a goaltend, per Anthony Slater of The Athletic. The end result: The game-winning basket, as it looked from the start, was officially credited to Curry.
Meanwhile, from a big-picture perspective, the 5-1 Warriors have won their fourth road game of the young season. Back to the IST, Friday’s other winners were the Bucks, Heat, Nets, Pacers, Nuggets and Trail Blazers in overtime. The Grizzlies, last season’s No. 2 seed in the Western Conference, have dropped to 0-6 on the season. With Ja Morant not due to return for 19 more games, their hopes for both the playoffs and the In-Season Tournament are on life support.
The NBA’s first ever In-Season Tournament will span all of November and the early portion of December. Here’s a quick refresher on what to expect. The league has divided each conference into three five-team groups. Those teams will play group stage games on Tuesdays and Fridays in November. The teams are debuting this season’s city edition uniforms and the games will be played on specially-designed courts.
Once all five teams in each group have played one another, the top eight will advance to the knockout stage in early December. Those eight teams will include the six group winners along with one wildcard team in each conference. Of course, with only a four-game sample, actually whittling the field down to eight teams will be complicated. Ties will be broken in the following order:
- Group stage head-to-head record
- Point differential in group stage games
- Points scored in group stage games
- Regular-season record during the 2022-23 season
- Random drawing
The In-Season Tournament standings will be updated every tournament night. The next tournament night will be Friday, Nov. 10.
In-Season Tournament results & schedule
Friday, Nov. 3
- Pacers 121, Cavaliers 116
- Bucks 110, Knicks 105
- Heat 121, Wizards 114
- Nets 109, Bulls 107
- Warriors 141, Thunder 139
- Nuggets 125, Mavericks 114
- Trail Blazers 115, Grizzlies 113 (OT)
Friday, Nov. 10 (all times Eastern)
- 76ers at Pistons, 7 p.m., League Pass
- Hornets at Wizards, 7 p.m., League Pass
- Nets at Celtics, 7:30 p.m., ESPN
- Pelicans at Rockets, 8 p.m., League Pass
- Jazz at Grizzlies, 8 p.m., League Pass
- Timberwolves at Spurs, 8 p.m., League Pass
- Clippers at Mavericks, 8:30 p.m., Bally Sports
- Lakers at Suns, 10 p.m., ESPN
- Thunder at Kings, 10 p.m., League Pass